In this article

Manage result types

In this article

As a site collection administrator or site owner, you can create and use result types to customize how results are displayed for particular types of documents.

SharePoint Online has both a classic and a modern search experience. For the classic search experience, you use a result type to specify a display template that the search system should use for a particular type of document or search result. As documents aren't all the same, search results shouldn't be either. By using result types and display templates, it's much easier for users to find the results they are looking for. You can't customize how results are displayed for the modern search experience. Learn about the differences between the classic and modern search experiences in SharePoint Online.

A result type specifies one or more conditions to compare search results against, such as the type or the result source of the search result, and an action to take if a search result meets those conditions. The action specifies the display template to use for the search result.

For example, a preconfigured result type named Person specifies that if a search result comes from the result source Local People Results, then use the People Item display template. The People Item display template shows information in the hover panel such as documents the person's authored and gives you quick access to those documents.

Another example is to have a result type that fires if the ContentType property containsSales Report , and then have a specific display template for sales reports. Users will identify the search result as a sales report right away.